Starbucks

Perhaps seeking to dispel rumors that Starbucks can’t innovate in payments without Howard Schultz, the company is joining a platform that could one day enable customers to trade bitcoins for caramel lattes and mocha frappuccinos.

Starbucks Corp. is joining forces with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to begin delivering its drinks and baked goods in China, rolling out an effort to stave off competitors and turn around sales in the country.

From its beginnings as a standalone Starbucks Card app, the Starbucks mobile experience was always a bit different from what other companies tried to do.

Longtime Starbucks boss Howard Schultz was so invested in the company's mobile payments strategy that he once stepped down from his day-to-day duties to focus his full attention on the tech initiative. Without his involvement, will Starbucks lose its edge in fintech?

The mobile app's popularity was joined at the hip with Starbucks gift cards and loyalty points, a formula that has traditionally been known to work well at other retailers through plastic cards.

Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google garner so much attention that they have their own collective shorthand, FAANG. But it was a mostly different set of companies, including Starbucks and Acorns, that were top of mind this week for their financial services moves.

The departure is likely to fuel speculation of a presidential run.

It's vital to be in touch with consumer shopping and payment tastes for individual retail categories and consumer groups. That may or may not include removing cash and human interaction, according to Andrew Wind, principal product manager at Worldpay.

Starbucks mobile app is reportedly getting more use than Apple Pay, but the comparison is largely meaningless in a market that is increasingly prone to supporting multiple mobile wallets instead of a single victor.

Starbucks has reported an impressive number of in-store sales in the U.S. coming through its mobile app, a figure that has climbed quarter after quarter since the 2009 introduction of the Starbucks Card app — until July 2017, when it reached 30% and has not budged from that number since.